Chaplain's corner.

Recently I returned to my office in the Chapel at the Palo Alto Health Care System in California after a visit with a recently wounded Iraq spinal cord patient. Our hospital has been designated a polytrauma rehabilitation center (PRC) that deals with comprehensive interdisciplinary rehabilitation issues, and provides medical care and coordination of care for the severely wounded veterans with multiple complex injuries.

Now for those of us in the DAV these veterans are kindred spirits. As I returned from the ward, I wondered if our DAV members from other wars knew about the issues and the language of our new disabled brothers and sisters. Are we really aware of how our new members are dealing with their problems? Also it came to me that if we knew what was going on with our new veterans, then we, as oldtimers, just might be able to be more helpful and be better able to contribute to the recovery of our potential members.

Every night on our TV news programs we hear about our soldiers getting wounded by roadside bombs. These injuries have resulted in new patterns of polytraumatic injuries and disability requiring intensive rehabilitation and coordination of care. Of these injured personnel, the VA reports that 60 percent have some degree of traumatic brain injury. Four major hospitals or health care systems in the VA have been designated as polytrauma centers to deal with our returning veterans' medical problems. These lead centers like Palo Alto have developed the necessary expertise to provide the care required.

The mission of these four special hospitals or PRCs is to provide total inpatient rehab care for those wounded. This includes complex physical, cognitive, mental health care, and something new for the VA, support for their families. This mission also has as a goal the seamless moving of our patients from acute hospitalization through acute rehabilitation to returning back to community. In this way injured folk can receive the best care possible.

If this is the mission of the VA, then what is our mission as caring Disabled American Veterans? How do we plug into what the VA and the Department of Defense are doing to help in the recovery of our brother and sister veterans? Our faith teaches us to care and to try and understand the pain of our neighbor. It teaches us to get involved and to become part of the solution and not let a stranger wander alone in pain.

What can you and I do? VA and military hospitals need volunteers, sign-up. The DAV needs money, donate. Military folks are returning to their hometowns, recruit and welcome them to membership. At the Convention in Chicago there will be a program sponsored by the Chaplains with speakers from the VA to talk about polytrauma, sign-up for the DAV Chaplains Seminar. What would happen if all of us made one contact, one phone call? What would happen if we all gave one hour a week of volunteer time to care about a new returning vet? What better way to put a smile on the face of the God we worship than to care for those who have given so much for us? Amen

Reverend Edward Bastille, National Chaplain